Case 1: Jesuit Guides
Lower right. China illustrata, a book so popular that this pirated version was published in 1667 by a Dutch printer. It is extensively illustrated; many of its illustrations are used on the wall and on the case cards throughout the exhibit. The author, Athanasius Kircher, was famous, a celebrity scholar. He wrote this, one of the most famous books on China, despite the fact that he had never been there and didn’t know a word of Chinese. He depended on material sent by the Jesuits in China.
Marco Polo had reported that there were communities of Nestorian Christians in China.
When the Jesuits arrived 300 years later, the Jesuits had hoped to contact them; but they had all disappeared. So when a stele, left by Nestorian missionaries, was discovered in 1625 in Xi’an
(where the terra cotta warriors were found.); it was particularly important to the Jesuits. ( A rubbing of the stele is on the wall to the right of the case.) The text is about Christian rulers and missionaries; the Jesuits spent decades working on the translation...Upper left. One of the most expensive books of the time, also by Kircher. The fold out shows the first Chinese text printed in
Europe. The text is from the Nestorian stele, but is not entirely accurate. It was engraved on a metal plate and printed like an illustration. With it are included two translations, one very literal, and lots of commentary by Kircher.
Free Standing CaseA copy of the original edition of China Illustrata belonging to Tim Billings. A pirated edition was
in Case 1.
Case 2: Friends and Collaborators
Matteo Ricci was a Jesuit who spent many years in China and learned to write in felicitous Chinese and to write beautiful Chinese characters. He was born in eastern Italy and died in 1610 so next year will be the 400th anniversary of his death. He had a Chinese friend, “Paul” Xu Guangq, who helped him with the language...Upper right. In answer to a question, Ricci wrote an
eloquent “Essay on Friendship” in Chinese; based on classical European sources, such as Aristotle and Plutarch. It was very popular and circulated widely in manuscript. Two of Ricci’s friends, independently, arranged to have his treatise published. He proclaimed loudly that this was without his knowledge and consent because if a Jesuit wished to publish anything, he had to have permission (a lengthy process that required approval from Europe.) This printed book became an instant best seller in the late Ming dynasty. He was invited to court and would have met the emperor, but by this time the emperor lived in total seclusion, seeing only his eunuchs. The emperor loved the mechanical clocks that Ricci gave him. He also loved the harpsichord that Ricci had ordered from Europe and taught one of the eunuchs to play. Ricci even wrote a piece of music to be played for the Emperor. (The Folger Consort will play this piece at their next concert.) The manuscript for this music was only discovered in 2000 AD among the papers of the Earl of Guilford, who had lived in Italy in the 17th century...
Lower left: Ricci attempted to translate Euclid’s Geometry into Chinese, but found it too difficult. Later with the help of his friend “Paul” , he was able to complete it. Upper left: Marco Polo had visited during the Yuan Dynasty; this dynasty was an occupying one of Mongols so he learned the Mongolian, not Chinese, names for places. He called China “Cathay” and used Mongolian names for the major cities as well. The word “China” comes from the Qing (pronounced “Chin”) dynasty that took power in 1644. Early maps showed Cathay and China as two separate places. The early Jesuits knew they were in “China” and kept looking for “Cathay”. Ricci was the one who definitely concluded that China and Cathay were one and the same.
Question: Is the Jonathan Spence book still considered a good source? It is a wonderful read.. {It is a biography of Ricci with a lot of information about the time and places in which he lived. See
book list at end of write-up. SPR}
Answer: Yes, Tim thought at the time that it had covered everything, but when he started work, he found out more. After these two cases, it is easy to make fun of the misconceptions the Europeans had about China.
Case 3: In Search of the Silkpeople
Case 4: The Great WallsHere is where we begin the theme of what Europeans thought of when they thought of China. Freestanding Case This copy of Theatrum orbis terrarum is one of Tim’s favorite books in the exhibit. It is open to a map of China; in the lower right are some of the famous land ships, little sailing wagons or carts that were one of the first associations anyone in Europe had with China.
Over Case 5Around 1600 AD a Flemish engineer built such a wagon, based on the description of the Chinese ones. It was not very successful since it tipped easily and was hard to steer. A fine example of a cross-cultural conversation. In fact, there were no such sailing wagons in China. A single reference from the 4th or 5th century shows a wheel barrow equipped with a sail.
Case 5: Cany Wagons LightCenter: A map by John Speed shows little sailing wagons in the upper left. Like his maps of European countries, he shows small pictures along the side of men and women dressed in their native clothing...Left: John Milton’s Paradise Lost is open to the page with the quote “With Sails and Wind thir canie Waggons light” referring to the Chinese sailing carts. On Wall: Strange Wonders In European reports of China, it is (and was) hard to separate what was real from what was crazy. They believed that there were no beggars in China. Some things were partly true. There was a picture showing fishermen lying back in a boat while birds caught the fish and dropped them into the boat. Most people considered that a legend. But later they learned about the trained cormorants who had rings around their necks to prevent them from swallowing the fish and who did bring them to the fishermen.
Case 6: Chinese Tales: Marco Polo’s LegacyLower right: This edition of Marco Polo has only one illustration; it shows a stalk of rhubarb! This kind was called the true rhubarb, unlike the kind found in Europe. It was held in high esteem as a medicine, very effective in purging. When Europeans thought of China, they thought of musk, rhubarb, sailing wagons and the Great Wall. Surprisingly, they did not associate silk with China. The best silk came from Italy. In early years, the Chinese had carefully guarded the secret of how silk was made. In the 6th century the Emperor Justinian sent some Jesuit missionaries to China to discover the secret. They carried bamboo walking sticks. They concealed larva of silk worms and mulberry leaves inside the hollow sticks and walked with them back to Rome to present them to the Pope. Thereafter silk was considered as Italian.
On Wall: Musk deerMusk was a priceless commodity, used both in perfume and as a very popular medicine, used in cases of epilepsy among other conditions. It shows up in a lot of European medical texts.
Case 7: New MedicineVisitors will be surprised at how open the Europeans were to acupuncture...Upper left. A 17th century European text based directly on a Chinese medicinal text. In the 1670's the Royal society devoted a session to discussing the efficacy of Chinese medicine. We’re not looking at straightforward progress from A to A+1. Remember, European medicine of the time believed in bleeding and the balance of humors so was similar in principle to Chinese medicine. The 16th and 17th century Europeans had a different set of assumptions about China than we do.
End Case: China Dishes
